IT was full steam ahead at the Keighley and Worth Railway (KWVR) today as steam trains churned on despite the cold and snowy weather.
The KWVR is holding its Steam Gala over the next four days, but the snowy conditions did not spoil the first day of the gala.
"The steam gala is going ahead despite the weather," said Matt Stroh, chairman of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.
"The trains are running and the passengers have been enjoying themselves.
"It's been challenging conditions but we like a challenge.
"We have four days of steam specials running from today to over the weekend.
"The snow has made it a strangely festive occasion. But we'll have to tell the children that Santa won't be visiting us in March."
Mr Stroh said: "We're used to running in this kind of weather.
"We've been warming the engines up and stoking the fires up for a couple of days to prepare.
"So at the moment, the wheels are turning."
Mr Stroh said the wintry weather is perfect for customers to see the steam billowing out between the carriages and look out onto the snowy countryside.
"With the steam billowing out between the carriages, it does look nice."
Mr Stroh said that this is the first time that the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway will be running its steam gala over four days.
"It started out as just a weekend thing but then we moved it to three days. Now we're trialling it for four days.
"Increasingly, we're finding that people like to come for a long weekend.
"These weekends are always good for photographers who love taking pictures of our trains.
"So we're just trying to accommodate everyone."
Mr Stroh explained that Keighley and Worth Valley Railway will have a total of five different steam engines running over the weekend.
"We have two home fleet engines and three guest engines. They are the London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) engines that were designed by Sir William Stanier."
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